Gardens by the sea

We are surrounded by it here, and gardeners and garden designers love it – the sea. 

It has challenges and rewards to test our skills: the challenges are salt-laden winds, unbroken gales and often poor soil. But the rewards are great too: we can demonstrate our skill in coping with this; the colours and textures of the sea makes it the ultimate foil for plants and, apart from the wind, the climate is more forgiving. The promise of no serious frosts has lead gardeners for years to ‘push the boundaries’ of what they can grow.

From a plantsman’s point of view, there are always ‘new’ plants which can be tried and tested. From a designer’s point of view, it’s impossible to pin any particular aesthetic on gardens by the sea, because our coastline is so diverse. There is the ‘golden coast’ of Dublin Bay, (Killiney Bay, after all, has been called the ‘Naples of Ireland’, with its grand houses perched on steep hills.) There’s the calmer, sandier coast from Wicklow to east Cork, with its rich agricultural hinterland. West Cork and Kerry have areas of lush woods, and on around to the exposed west coast taking in the Burren along the way, all the way up to Donegal. And there are the extraordinary pockets of calm and mildness in the north, such as Mount Stewart outside Belfast. The now ubiquitous Phormium, Hebe and Griselinia have had their day in the sun, and have made their mark on our coastline. The time has now come for people to make more informed and diverse decisions, and it's hoped that dyg can help in doing this.